A narrow country lane crossed above the tracks a little more than three hundred metres past the tunnel mouth, supported by a short stone bridge. The shell had landed just a few dozen metres away, punching into the upper edge of the western side of the cutting and blasting away a thirty metre hole. The bridge collapsed immediately, dumping huge stone blocks and rubble across both sets of tracks in an impenetrable wall. The driver hit the brakes as heavily as he dared without risking immediate derailment and brought the train to a shuddering halt just forty metres from the opening as dust and smoke from the explosion rolled down the tunnel past the train in an acrid, choking wash of heat.
A little more than thirty-eight thousand metres away, super-heavy gun SK-100(E) ‘Dora’ fired a specially-loaded shell that was known to the Wehrmacht as a 80cm VRRD. The acronym stood for verlängertereihe rüstungsdurchstossen, and roughly translated into English as ‘Extended Range Armour-Piercing’. The huge gun’s conventional armour piercing shell (if anything about the weapons could be considered ‘conventional’) weighed more than seven tonnes and was designed to penetrate seven metres of reinforced concrete. The extended range version looked almost identical, but weighed 350kg less and was equipped with a special feature that in post-war Realtime would become known as ‘base-bleed’ technology.
The base of the VRRD shell was slightly recessed instead of tapering to a flat bottom, and a flare-like mechanism into was fitted the resultant cavity that generated a small but significant amount of inert gas. The gas created filled the small area of vacuum that normally occurred at the very base of an artillery shell – a vacuum that brought with it a significant amount of aerodynamic drag. By eliminating that vacuum (and the drag it created), the VRRD or ‘base-bleed’ shell was able to extend its range by approximately thirty percent.
A standard 80cm HE shell could reach approximately 48km range (and its own VRHE version out to better than 62km), but the conventional armour-piercing round, being more than two tonnes heavier, could make barely 38km, and at the very boundary of its extreme range it couldn’t hope to hit its intended target with anything close to the necessary accuracy. The VRRD variant however could reach out to almost 50km, and as such the Guston Tunnel was still close enough to allow excellent accuracy, if with a minor reduction in explosive and penetrative performance due to its slightly reduced weight.
Oblivious to all the technology and design surrounding it, the shell itself flew on through the clear sky on its supersonic ballistic arc, reaching the zenith of its journey high above the middle of The Channel. Far too heavy to be even the slightest bit affected by wind or turbulence around it, it tipped back toward Earth and the green fields of Kent far below.
Dora’s shell went long, completely by chance landing on the exact centre of the intersection of the A2 with Dover Road, three hundred metres to the north. The shell punched deep into the soft earth before exploding too far down to reach the open air above. Instead, the blast created a large, artificial underground cavern beneath the surface known as a camouflet, into which the land above immediately collapsed. A roughly circular section of intersection and surrounding land approximately five metres across immediately fell into the newly-formed space, leaving a crater several metres deep.
Inside Guston Tunnel, everyone felt and heard the impact. The earth shook dramatically and a shower of earth, dust and some larger fragments of brickwork rained down on the train and their heads as the structure shuddered under the nearby blast. They couldn’t see the cracks that had appeared in the darkness of the tunnel roof above their heads, but they could hear the shifting and grating sounds of movement overhead, and the larger chunks that fell about them were a terrifying warning that all was definitely not well.
“The boys are going to make a break for it, sir!” Lieutenant Carstairs, his 2IC, was clearly terrified as he clambered up the side of the locomotive and into the cabin to confront his commanding officer.
“We can’t afford to get caught in the open out there,” Pruitt replied, also frightened but forcing himself to remain in control. “That cutting’s a death-trap for a hundred yards beyond the tunnel in either direction: we’re done for if the Luftwaffe catches us.”
“One more hit like that and we’re done for anyway!” Carstairs shot back, his voice almost breaking under the strain and fear. “I’d rather take my chances with Jerry fighters than with these bloody ‘superguns’!”
Unable to reach HQ on the radio from inside the tunnel, Major Sebastian Pruitt was left to make his own decisions and he needed to make one quickly. The sides of the cutting at either end of the tunnel were far too steep for he or his men to have any hope of climbing to safety, and that situation continued on for some distance before the tracks levelled out into open fields. Pruitt wasn’t about to allow his men to become trapped in such a fashion. That being said, as he craned his head out through the open doorway of the driver’s cab and stared back down along the length of the train, he could already see some of his men jumping from the gun and making their way toward the far end.
“Get us out of here, Dennis!” He ordered the driver, making that quick decision in a moment. “Take us back out the way we’ve come: as soon as we’re past the cutting and out in the open, the rest of you can ‘jump ship’. I’ll take the train back into the tunnel myself and secure the gun if Jerry gives me enough time…”
“Oi reckon you’ll need some ‘elp driving her back in, major,” the driver replied with a shrug and a matter-of-fact grin. “Might as well come back for the ride with you…”
As Pruitt gave a nod of thanks and appreciation of the man’s offered help, the driver turned back to his controls and began to reverse the train back out in the same direction from which they’d originally entered. It was difficult to see clearly past the ammo wagons and the bulk of the gun itself, and as a result the train moved a good deal slower than it had on the way into the tunnel with the shunter at the front and the view ahead completely clear.
They were perhaps three hundred metres from daylight at the northern end of the tunnel as Gustav’s next VRRD shell hit. The roof of the tunnel was a dozen metres or more beneath the earth at that point, and in most cases that would’ve been considered more than enough protection from even the biggest bombs. The armour-piercing shell however, capable of penetrating better than six metres of reinforced concrete, punched through the layers of earth and flint-streaked chalk as if it were soft as butter.
A delayed fuse detonated its 250kg explosive charge as it broke through the ceiling of the tunnel and struck the tracks below, almost exactly halfway along. In such a confined space, the blast was concentrated and significantly magnified as it was channelled along the length of the tunnel in either direction, with smoke and flame bursting into the open air from each end simultaneously and sending twin black clouds rolling skyward. What was left of the train, gun carriage and attendant wagons was crushed as the already-weakened tunnel collapsed completely on itself. Everyone was already dead in any case; killed instantly by the blast from an explosion they never saw coming.
General Sir John Dill died with the rest of the men inside the OP atop Shakespeare Cliff a few minutes later. The German radio direction-finding unit at Wissant on the French coast had managed to narrow down the location of their radio transmissions enough for the airborne FAC and its fighter escort to carry out a visual search of the cliff tops in the area, and the sharp-eyed artillery spotter had quickly picked out a pair of armoured cars in the trees behind the OP that clearly indicated their presence. Dill had feared the worst the moment they’d lost contact with Piecemaker, and was devastated by the loss of so many men in such a futile and one-sided exchange. His entourage of aides and escorts were so preoccupied with packing their equipment and preparing to leave that no one spotted another two gigantic muzzle flashes from across The Channel through their viewing scopes.
Shakespeare Cliff rose ninety metres above the surface of the water below, and the pair of high explosive shells stuck simultaneously
roughly halfway up the cliff face – which had been exactly their point of aim. The cliffs weren’t particularly solid in geological terms, being comprised almost entirely of white chalk streaked with black flint, and the area of Shakespeare Cliff had historically been prone to infrequent landslides already, at times causing the closure of the railway line between Folkestone and Dover that ran along the coast below their heights.
The combined force of 1,400kg of explosive in close proximity was more than enough to shatter the integrity of a huge section of cliff face and bring it tumbling down into The Channel below in a billowing white cloud of chalk and rubble. As the dust settled once more over the area, and the guns of SS Special Heavy Battery 672(E) finally fell silent, no evidence of the observation post remained. It and everyone inside it were now crushed and buried beneath thousands of tonnes of chalk that had also closed the rail tunnel below and obliterated the Shakespeare Cliff Railway Halt nearby into the bargain. Now much closer to the edge of the White Cliffs than they’d bargained for, the crews of the pair of armoured cars parked on the road behind where the OP had been were now the only survivors, and they could only look on in stunned horror at the destruction below them.
Strasser lowered his field glasses and placed them on a nearby workbench before turning to congratulate the gun laying crew on a fine job. The mission had been a sterling success, and he fully intended to recommend both gun crews and the gunlayers for the Iron Cross, with the Knight’s Cross for the commanding officers. All radio traffic between the OP and the guns had ceased, and although it was no guarantee they’d annihilated the opposition, the general’s gut feeling was that this had certainly come to pass.
He turned to leave the observation bunker and head off to a rest area in the rear where he could get a cup of coffee. Above the bulkhead doorway to the exit tunnel, the unit’s motto had been fixed on a plaque for all to see. Flanked by the Nazi Reichsadler coat-of-arms on either side (a black eagle with spread wings and head turned to the right grasping a swastika in its claws), the Latin phrase Ultima Ratio Regum was printed in large, stencilled black lettering against a white background.
Ultima Ratio Regum: The Final Argument of Kings. The phrase had been famously cast on the French cannon during the reign of Louis XIV by his decree, and was a shortened variation on the metaphor ‘the Last Resort of Kings and Common Men’ in reference to the issuance of a declaration of war. It was Strasser, a keen student of history and an artilleryman in the Great War, who’d chosen the motto for SS Special Heavy Battery 672(E). By his own reasoning, what greater embodiment of the phrase could there be in any artillery weapon than the pair of incredible guns under his command.
As Reuters hung up the phone he was almost smiling: the first operational use of Gustav and Dora had been an unqualified success. The incident had shown up some deficiencies in the alertness of the air defence units in place, but no real harm had come of it and there’d be constant fighter patrols over the area as well from that day on, with extra radar units posted to the area to provide better early warning. The guns’ existence had been revealed a little earlier than they’d have preferred, but the British would certainly have found out about them eventually, and the success of the mission had been so absolute that it was difficult to find anything negative in the outcome at all.
“We can forget any reservations regarding the capabilities of Battery 672(E).” He stated with a wry grin as Albert Schiller entered through the briefing room’s main doors.
Sitting at the main map table that had almost become his office desk by proxy, a bottle of fine French brandy was already sitting beside the Reichsmarschall along with a pair of filled snifters. Lifting both glasses, he offered one to Schiller as he approached.
“Here’s to taking out the British Chief-of-General Staff and to turning the County of Kent into a moonscape in the process!” Reuters raised the toast, beaming all the while, before raising the glass to his lips.
“Cheery fellow…!” Schiller observed, chuckling as he lowered his glass once more. “Good to see you in such a good mood. I take it, however, that I wasn’t called in this afternoon to discuss the use and subsequent success of our ‘popguns’, heartening as the news is, of course?”
“All business today I see, Albert!” Reuters shot back with a smile. “Müller put dry ice in your bath again this morning?” The pair laughed lightly for a moment before the Reichsmarschall moved on to more serious subjects. “No… I didn’t bring you in for that. Yesterday’s ‘testing of the water’ at Scapa Flow went remarkably well…”
“…Unless you were one of the pilots…” Schiller added dryly with dark irony.
“…Remarkably well…!” Reuters continued, intentionally ignoring the remark. “I’d very much like to make use of that success before the bastards have a chance to find their feet. They’re going to at least suspect they’ve a traitor in their midst, but it’ll take them some time to dig anything up doing the usual background checks and such like… I don’t intend to allow them that time. We know they still haven’t received any conventional aircraft from Fighter Command to assist their defences, and I’ll be very surprised if they receive any at all… everything the RAF has is already needed in the south to combat our bombing campaign down here. They’ve already had to bleed Twelve Group white to the point of non-existence, and Ten and Eleven Groups aren’t much better.”
“So all they’ll have are flak guns and the two jets.”
“Exactly… Raeder is planning a breakout of Carrier Group Two in two days time, and there’s an excellent chance we could see most of the Home Fleet sortied from Scapa Flow in response. Müller’s guaranteed us two days of heavy fog patches along the eastern side of the North Sea that’ll make it difficult for the Englanders to track us, but they’ll have to come anyway – the Royal Navy’s never shied away from a fight yet, and I don’t expect them to this time, either. The Marineflieger will have some surprises prepared for them if they do, and it’ll also mean the anchorage will be relatively empty, meaning no large warships to provide Hindsight with extra heavy flak protection.”
“So our ‘asset’ – as you so eloquently put it – takes out their radar again, this time for good?”
“Yes… a proper job this time… and they’ll get precious little warning as a result. SKG1 will carry out a massed bombing run at high altitude: the commanders are already briefed and prepared.”
“We’ll lose a lot of planes, even if they do just have the jets!” Schiller winced at the likelihood of survival as the crewman of a propeller-driven heavy bomber in combat against missile-armed, 21st Century fighters.
“If he has time, our asset will also try to take the fighters out… or at least delay their take off. There probably will be heavy casualties, but one F-35 and an F-22 can only carry a finite number of missiles and shells for their cannon. They’ll probably knock the whole of One Gruppe out of the sky within minutes, but they shouldn’t have any missiles or guns left after that and will be forced back to base to reload. They’ll not get a chance to get airborne again. Sufficient numbers will carry the day.”
“Well, that should make the Führer happier…” Schiller observed sourly, little humour showing, although his face then suddenly brightened as he recalled the news he’d come to advise Reuters of originally. “By the way… just got a report from one of or ‘contacts’ at the Abwehr: a ‘little bird’ told him our ‘good friend’, Oswald Zeigler has been seen swanning about an awful lot closer to the front lines that any of that lot would be at all used to.”
“Do tell?” Reuters urged, a sudden and keen interest showing in his eyes as he took another sip of his brandy.
“Apparently, the esteemed Herr Zeigler arrived in Boulogne-sur-Mer yesterday for the purpose of an afternoon hunting trip in the woods with…” he paused to bring some suspense to his next words “…another fine ‘supporter’ of ours, Brigadeführer Ernst Barkmann.”
“Well… well… well…” The Reichsmarschall mused softly, finding the news
more of interest than of any real concern. “It seems that scum, much like water, eventually does find its own level. Any insight into what might’ve been discussed?”
“None at all – our sources never got close enough to monitor conversations,” Schiller shrugged. “Never going to be anything good with those two involved, though.”
“No doubt,” Reuters agreed with a nod. “Do keep an eye on that would you? There’s a good fellow.” His mind chewed over a few thoughts for a silent moment, before he added: “Another thing: our man on the ground there probably won’t last long after the attack – they’ll know we have an insider for sure by then. Make sure our man has orders to kill Max Thorne if he gets the chance.”
“Thorne, dead or alive, won’t make much difference if we take out the hardware…” Schiller pointed out, well aware that his commander already knew that.
“No, it won’t at that…” Reuters admitted after another pause, a dark fire in his eyes now. “But it’ll make me a good deal happier, Albert… See that it’s done…”
Downing Street, Whitehall
Westminster SW1, London
It had taken far less red tape than anyone had expected to organise Hindsight’s meeting with the Prime Minister, as if Whitehall had somehow already been awaiting their call. Thorne and Donelson had flown down to RAF Stanmore in the F-35E that evening after sunset, and rode in a black government car through the heart of the blacked out city. There was no light whatsoever save for the almost non-existent illumination of their large Humber sedan’s masked headlights, and the trip was quite nerve-wracking for passengers far more accustomed to motorways and powerful quartz-iodine driving lights.
England Expects (Empires Lost) Page 52